Allelopathy: An overview from micro- to macroscopic organisms, from cells to environments, and the perspectives in a climate-changing world

Abstract

Allelopathy is an important ecological phenomenon influencing ecosystem dynamics. Currently, it has gained attention due to the potential applications of allelochemicals in agriculture. Allelopathic interactions have been reported in ecological relationships between plants and microorganisms, and between species of each group. These studies have been relatively descriptive, however, without interconnected views of how these molecules can affect cell biology and how they are integrated into environmental interactions. The present review provides an overview of the history, physiology, and ecological effects of allelopathy, with special focus on its occurrence between macro- and microorganisms and its ecological roles in terrestrial and aquatic environments. We have attempted to examine the interconnections between terrestrial and aquatic systems in relation to the production, dynamics, and ecological effects of allelochemicals and to discuss the possible effects of climate changes on allelopathic interactions.

New Ecological Role of Seaweed Secondary Metabolites as Autotoxic and Allelopathic

“…Allelopathy among terrestrial plants includes intraspecific interactions that are important in controlling population density and are hypothesized to minimize resource competition, enhancing population viability (Gomes et al, 2017). The same compounds can act in both allelopathy interactions, interspecific and intraspecific (Perry et al, 2005).…”

“…The same compounds can act in both allelopathy interactions, interspecific and intraspecific (Perry et al, 2005). Several interspecific (Gomes et al, 2017;Silva et al, 2017) and intraspecific -also designed as autotoxicity and/or autoinhibition (Singh et al, 1999;Kato-Noguchi et al, 2018) -allelopathic interactions have been described in terrestrial plants, but these interactions are less studied among seaweed species (but see Kumler, 2017).…”

Effect of Extracts from Dominant Forest Floor Species of Clear-Cuts on the Regeneration and Initial Growth of Pinus sylvestris L. with Respect to Climate Change

“…Any alterations in the plant community structure that are caused by climate change result from underlying changes in the population dynamics of the species that make up the community [ 51 ]. In an environmental context, it is very difficult to predict the results of climate change on allelopathic processes, but additional synergic or antagonistic interactions between allelochemicals and environmental conditions could be expected during experiments [ 52 ]. Therefore, understanding the responses to climate change at the species level is important to predict the functioning of the ecosystem in the future [ 53 ].…”

The Use of Fluorescence Microscopy to Assess the Suppression of the Development of Cyanobacteria under the Influence of Allelochemicals of Aquatic Macrophytes

“…There are a large number of low-molecular-weight organic compounds (LMWOCs), metabolites of freshwater macrophytes that can perform an allelopathic function in aquatic ecosystems [16,[19][20][21].…”